﻿Hello Good People who might read this....﻿These days friends, non-friends, and a few undesirables keep asking me when they can see me. I keep putting people off due to illness (pleurisy recently as well as the usual CFS), my heavy studies and other commitments which has elicited some strange reactions ( such as an email I received where someone had copied and pasted all the reasons for my not being able to see them from my previous emails to them) but that's OK...I don't seem to have many moments to myself these days but since I DO have a moment this evening I thought I'd write this. 1. Just to mention that the review written by Brian Banks has been published on/in "Stick it in Your Ear" and you can get to it from HERE! or from hereNot much more to say about that apart from another big Thank You.2. Also my life has been a bit full on with my PhD studies and dealing with money and housing and health problems ( and more on top of that). I have concluded that as a result of the recession many organisations have resorted to more and more crazy and corrupt tactics designed to drive me and everyone crazy while maintaining the appearance of being very helpful and good for us. I am beginning to think that no institution or organisation functions at all in London and as soon as you approach one organisation to help you with problems caused by another organisation, then they start to behave in corrupt and crazy way as well, so then you go to another institution/organisation/process to deal with them and then they also start to deal with you in corrupt and crazy ways that border on the absurd. Sooner or later you find yourself dealing with around ten organisations via phone, texts,emails and letter if you are lucky, who all have, in theory, a good customer service record, they say they are there to assist you, they " talk the talk".... but they let you down, blame you, they blantantly lie to keep themselves in employment, or to cover up the fact that someone has run off with your money, or was down the pub drowning their sorrows instead of dealing with your issue or has just exploded in a random fit of spontaneous combustion combined with the stress of keeping up appearances. That is my life! I am not naming names. Through chaos I build my character stronger and more determined and if I start to feel sorry for myself I start to think of those who have been flooded since before Christmas or deal with some other calamity in the world. Is mother nature reclaiming the earth away from us?3. A brief break from dysfunctional institutions occurred when I went to see Hawkwind play live on Saturday at the Shepherd's BushEmpire. Strange story. I was originally going to see the "old Hawkwind" band a.k.a. Space Ritual who were due to play at the Ruislip social club on Friday the 21st. But then it said the gig was cancelled, I was disappointed and wanted to find tickets for another gig for my son's birthday . Then I realised that Hawkwind were playing not far from me at the Shepherd's Bush Empire the following day, a benefit gig for various animal charities. Hawkwind were due to re-enact their original "Space Ritual" tour set which you can hear on their album of the same name.On the Tropic of Ruislip website it said that the band "Space Ritual" were not playing due to illness and someone in the band awaiting an operation. I am not sure what was going on, and why Hawkwind were due to play the Space Ritual set the next day. I guess possible rivalry between the two bands and more crazy games were going on. The Motorhead tour was due to be in London around that time and I hoped that maybe Lemmy, and the old Hawkwind crew from the band "Space Ritual" would somehow join the new "Hawkwind" on stage ( are you following this? if not just go and listen to this and it will cut through all the nonsense and give you the original music). Anyway Lemmy is ill, Dave Brock and Nik Turner don't get on, so we had the "new Hawkwind" only. But it was a great show, great causes , great lightshow, great music, but quite polished, not sure if that is quite in the spirit of the original Hawkwind ethic. They may have been playing the same tracks as on the live album but the rawness, the feel of psychedelic experimentation, the spirit of limitless musical anarchy was missing. However it was still brilliant and it had moments when the musicians lost themselves in generating a kind of overpowering joint musical energy that would be envy of any live band. Anyone who likes Mumford and Sons would not understand this and that is a good thing...It was a great night and the die hard Hawkwind fans are a joy to be around as always.4. I am using my Facebook profile to say how much I hate Facebook, a couple of friends have "liked" my anti-facebook comments but that just makes me hate Facebook more. In a total act of hypocrisy when I publish this blog entry I will be following the option to also publish it on Facebook and Twitter, however I will be doing this in a slightly less corporate American superficial saccarine way than the usual Facebook entry, who writes anything on Facebook and Twitter this long?Love and Peace to you all (except Facebook)Veronique